Davies:

2 Cor v. 20.–We then are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

…The introduction to this passage you find in the foregoing verses, God hath given to us (the apostles) the ministry of reconciliation; the sum and substance of which is, namely, “That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” As if he had said, “The great Sovereign of the universe, though highly provoked, and justly displeased with our rebellious world, has been so gracious as to contrive a plan of reconciliation whereby they may not only escape the punishment they deserve, but also be restored to the favor of God, and all the privileges of his favorite subjects. This plan was laid in Christ; that is, it was he who was appointed, and undertook to remove all obstacles out of the way of their reconciliation, so that it might be consistent with the honor and dignity of God and his Government. This he performed by a life of perfect obedience, and an atoning death, instead of rebellious man. Though “he knew no sin” of his own: yet “he was made sin,” that is, a sin-offering, or a sinner by imputation “for us,” that we might “be made the righteousness of God in him.” Thus all hindrances are removed on God’s part. The plan of a treaty of reconciliation is formed, approved, and ratified in the court of heaven; but then it must be published, all the terms made known, and the consent of the rebels solicited and gained. It is not enough that all impediments to peace are removed on God’s part; they must also be removed on the part of man; the reconciliation must be mutual; both the parties must agree. Hence arises the necessity of the ministry of reconciliation which was committed to the apostles, those prime ministers of the kingdom of Christ, and in a lower sphere to the ordinary ministers of the gospel in every age. The great business of their office is to publish the treaty of peace; that is, the articles of reconciliation, and to use every motive to gain the consent of mankind to these articles. It is this office St. Paul is discharging, when he says, We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Samuel Davies, “Sinners Entreated to be Reconciled to God” in Sermons on Important Subjects (New York: Robert Carter, 1845), 1:45, 55-56. [Italics original; underlining mine.]

Saurin:

Christ died for all, therefore all died (2 Cor. 5:14-15):

1)

SERMON VII.

The Efficacy of the Death of Christ.

2 Corinthians v. 14, 15.

The love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died For all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him, which died for them, and rose again.

My Brethren,

We have great designs today on you, and we have great means of executing them. Sometimes we require the most difficult duties of morality of you. At other times we preach the mortification of the senses to you, and with St. Paul, we tell you, “they that are Christ’s, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” Gal. v. 24. Sometimes we attack your attachment to riches, and after the example of our great Master, we exhort you to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal,” Matt. vi. 20. At other times we endeavor to prepare you for some violent operation, some severe exercises, with which it may please God to try you, and we repeat the words of the apostle to the Hebrews, “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,” Heb. xii. 4, 12. At other times we summon you to suffer a death more painful than your own; we require you to dissolve the tender ties that unite your hearts lo your relatives and friends; we adjure you to break the bonds that constitute all the happiness of your lives, and we utter this language, or shall I rattier say, thunder this terrible gradation in the name of Almighty God, “Take now thy son–thine only son–Isaac–whom thou lovest–and offer him for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of,” Gen. xxii. 2. Today we demand all these. We require more than the sacrifice of your senses, more than that of your riches, more than that of your impatience, more than that of an only son; we demand an universal devotedness of yourselves to the author and finisher of your faith; and to repeat the emphatical language of my text, which in its extensive compass involves, and includes all these duties, we require you “henceforth not to live unto yourselves: but unto him, who died and rose again for you.”

As we have great designs on you, so we have great means of executing them. They are not only a few of the attractives of religion. They are not only such efforts as your ministers sometimes make, when uniting all their studies and all their abilities, they approach you with the powder of the word : It is not only an august ceremony, or a solemn festival. They are all these put together. God hath assembled them all in the marvelous transactions of this one day.

Here are all the attractives of religion. Here are all the united efforts of your ministers, who unanimously employ on these occasions all the penetration of their minds, all the tenderness of their hearts, all the power of language to awake your piety, and to incline you to render to Jesus Christ love for love, and life for life. It is an august ceremony, in which, under the most simple symbols, that nature affords, God represents the most sublime objects of religion to you. This is a solemn festival, the most solemn festival, that Christians observe, this occasions them to express in songs of the highest joy their gratitude and praise to their deliverer, these are their sentiments, and thus they exult, “The right hand of the Lord doth valiantly!” Psal. cxviii. 15. “Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” Eph. i. 3. “Blessed be God, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” 1 Pet. i. 3.

And on what days, is it natural to suppose, should the preaching of the gospel perform those miracles, which are promised to it, if not on such days as these? When if not on such days as these, should “the sword of the spirit, divide asunder soul and spirit joints, and marrow,” Eph. vi. 17. Heb. iv. 12. and cut in twain every bond of self-love and sin?

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Leo:

Sins of the world:

1) What hope then do they, who deny the reality of the human person in our Savior’s body, leave for themselves in the efficacy of this mystery? Let them say by what sacrifice they have been reconciled, by what blood-shedding brought back.  Who is He “who gave Himself for us an offering and a victim to God for a sweet smell:” or what sacrifice was ever more hallowed than that which the true High priest placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although in the sight of the Lord the death of many of His saints has been precious, yet no innocent’s death was the propitiation of the world.  The righteous have received, not given, crowns:  and from the endurance of the faithful have arisen examples of patience, not the gift of justification.  For their deaths affected themselves alone, and no one has paid off another’s debt by his own death: one alone among the sons of men, our Lord Jesus Christ, stands out as One in whom all are crucified, all dead, all buried, all raised again. Of them He Himself said “when I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all (things) unto Me ” True faith also, that justifies the transgressors and makes them just, is drawn to Him who shared their human natures and wins salvation in Him, in whom alone man finds himself not guilty; and thus is free to glory in the power of Him who in the humiliation of our flesh engaged in conflict with the haughty  foe, and shared His victory with those in whose body He had triumphed. Leo the Great, “The Letters and Sermons of  Leo the Great,” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 12:92-93, Letter 124. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

Christ died for all:

1) Whilst the height of all virtues, dearly-beloved, and the fullness of all righteousness is born of that love, wherewith God and one’s neighbor is loved, surely in none is this love found more conspicuous and brighter than in the blessed martyrs; who are as near to our Lord Jesus, Who died for all men, in the imitation of His love, as in the likeness of their suffering.  For, although that Love, wherewith the Lord has redeemed us, cannot be equaled by any man’s kindness, because it is one thing that a man who is doomed to die one day should die for a righteous man, and another that One Who is free from the debt of sin should lay down His life for the wicked:  yet the martyrs also have done great service to all men, in that the Lord Who gave them boldness, has used it to show that the penalty of death and the pain of the cross need not be terrible to any of His followers, but might be imitated by many of them.  If therefore no good man is good for himself alone, and no wise man’s wisdom befriends himself only, and the nature of true virtue is such that it leads many away from the dark error on which its light is shed, no model is more useful in teaching God’s people than that of the martyrs.  Eloquence may make intercession easy, reasoning may effectually persuade; but yet examples are stronger than words, and there is more teaching in practice than in precept.   Leo the Great, “The Letters and Sermons of  Leo the Great,” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 12:197, Sermon 85.  [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

[Note: Leo is important because both Kimdoncius and Bastingius sought to establish a case for continuity between their view of the extent of the expiation and redemption with that of Leo’s. C.f., Kimedoncius, Bastingius and here.]

[To be continued…]

Davies:

1) Further, Let us improve our account of spiritual life, to inform us of a very considerable difference between a mere moral and spiritual life; or evangelical holiness and morality. Spiritual life is of a divine original; evangelical holiness flows from a supernatural principle; but mere morality is natural; it is but the refinement of our natural principles, under the aids of common grace, in the use of proper means; and consequently it is obtainable by unregenerate men. Hence the same act may be differently denominated, according to the principles from which it proceeds; that may be a piece of mere morality in one, who acts from natural principles only, which is an act of holiness in another, who acts from a principle of spiritual life. So an alms, when given from a gracious principle, and for Christ’s sake, is a gracious act; but when given from a principle of natural generosity only, it deserves no higher name than that of mere morality. A mistake in this is a rock we may tremble to look at, and ought anxiously to avoid! for alas! how many have been dashed to pieces upon it! Samuel Davies, “The Divine Life in the Souls of Men Considered” in Sermons on Important Subjects (New York: Robert Carter, 1845), 2:397. [underlining mine.]

2) Here, by the by, I would make a remark to vindicate this dreadful instance of the execution of divine justice, Which is more liable to the cavils of human pride and ignorance than perhaps any other. The remark is, that God may justly inflict privative as well as positive punishment upon obstinate sinners; or, in plainer terms, he may with undoubted justice punish them by taking away the blessings they have abused, or rendering those blessings useless to them, as well as by inflicting positive misery upon them. This is a confessed rule of justice; and it holds good as to spirituals as well as temporals. May not God as justly take away his common grace, and deny future assistance, to an obstinate sinner, who has abused it, as deprive him of health or life? Why may he not as justly leave him destitute of the sanctified use of the means of grace he has neglected and unimproved, in this world, as of the happiness of heaven, in the World to come? This is certainly a righteous punishment: and there is also a propriety and congruity in it: it is proper and congruous that the lovers of darkness should not have the light obtruded upon them; that the despisers of instruction, should receive no benefit from it; that those who improve not what they have, should have no more, but should lose even what they have. Thus their own choice is made their curse, and their sin their punishment Samuel Davies, “The Guilt and Doom of Impenitent Hearers,” in Sermons on Important Subjects (New York: Robert Carter, 1845), 3:464. [underlining mine.]